How Movie Theaters Are Shortchanging You

And you thought you were getting gouged on the price of a jumbo popcorn and 3D glasses.

The ongoing conversion of movie theaters from celluloid to digital projection and from 2D to 3D was supposed to give you bigger bang for your ticket-buying buck. Instead, in many theaters, it's actually giving you less.

As an article in The Boston Globe this week notes, some new 3D projectors may darken the picture by anywhere from 55 to 85 percent when screening 2D movies. So you may be seeing as little as 15 percent of the movie you paid for.

Of course, this is just one way that the supposed upgrade of theaters has actually led to a downgrade in the quality of the movie-going experience.